Author Archives: Virtual Farmgirl

I stumbled across this great Farmgirl feature in the Sunday Green Bay Press Gazette, “Women take the lead on more Wisconsin farms.” The piece notes that Wisconsin is among the top 10 states in which women are principals in farm operations. Deb Reinhart, who was the 2007 Dairy Woman of the Year at the WorldContinue reading “More Women than Men Enrolled in University of Wisconsin Ag Program?”

We ran out of milk over the weekend. So this got Future Farmboy wondering…”Why don’t we get a cow?” That would surely solve the problem. But I asked him where he’d put it. “In the backyard.” When I said that the cow would need shelter, he said daddy could build it a barn. When IContinue reading “Backyard Milk?”

If our schedules permit, we’re going to try to get it together to go to this Organic Farming Conference in La Crosse. It’s supposed to be the largest organic farming conference in the country with tons of workshops and more than a hundred exhibitors. If we go a day early, there’s an Organic University, withContinue reading “Ready for a Road Trip”

Finally, the iFarmer figured out where we were folding wrong to make a pressman’s hat. We can, however, now confirm that the incredible shrinking newspapers mean that the hats are truly child-sized. I doubt there were many full-grown pressmen who could fit these on their head… Folding and Instructions: On the old toy horse, withContinue reading “Eureka! A Pressman's Hat is Born!”

Apparently, I don’t know how to follow simple instructions. At least that’s the only conclusion I can possibly reach after going through whole sections of the newspaper to try to properly fold a pressman’s hat. [Pressmen used to fashion the hats out of newspaper to keep the ink that spewed out of the presses fromContinue reading “Easy as 1, 2, 3…But Not for Me”

Love this story by Laura Putre in the Chicago Reader about a former psychologist, turned used book store owner who chucked his city living for a farm in the Arkansas Ozarks. Great storytelling Laura. I read it all the way to the end, which is pretty amazing considering I have a pretty limited attention span.Continue reading “From Wicker Park to the Ozarks”

Now that I have my little tiny iPod Nano, I’ve been able to catch up a bit on my Geek Farm Life podcasts. I still have a ways to go, so I’m starting with podcast topics that might be useful. I started with the hallmark 100th Podcast on making soap. I have to admit thatContinue reading “Portable Farmlife Training on the Train”

Here are a couple of pix by Future Farmboy honoring Dr. King, or as Ben Harper called him, “Our picture of Jesus.” The pencil drawing was inspired by this coloring book sheet from school…

I finally tried the 5-minute artisan bread I was too lazy to make last weekend. Thanks for the encouragement Zoe! [Check out her blog at Zoe Bakes.] I can definitely report that it’s pretty easy to make. In fact, it took less than five minutes to mix it up and let it start rising. IContinue reading “Hot, Fresh Bread in 5 Minutes…Plus 4 Hours”

I have a new music feature to the VFG blog. It’s on the right column under the farmgirl/lavender photo. Hit play and you can listen to my playlist. At this point, I have 46 songs loaded into my finetune widget. It plays in a shuffle format. I’m guessing it’ll be tough to listen to theseContinue reading “Doing the Virtual Farmgirl Shuffle”